Vertical Intermix Chamber and TMP Enterprise

From the sounds of it, the doohickey was there on the NX-01 to cope with a new and exceptionally powerful warp field. One could speculate that the need for such a doohickey would re-emerge whenever an even newer and even more powerful warp field was introduced. That is, when the engines grew in power from TOS to TMP, the new field of the E-nil-refit (and E-B) once again required the doohickey - and when things plateaued again, the E-C was able to go the TOS route and abandon the doohickey.

The E-D might or might not have a field governor. It doesn't have blue domes, but it does have two clusters of blue squares atop the aft rim of the saucer. As discussed above, the presence of blue squares on starship hulls is sometimes associated with arboretums, but there's no canon proof for that - and blue glow more usually denotes the presence of powerful forcefields or subspace fields or the like. So perhaps those squares-of-squares on the E-D once again perform the function of the NX-01 dome? (They might also be the external manifestation of the saucer's warp engines, which "Encounter at Farpoint" basically insists are there, even if the TNG Tech Manual disagrees...)

^ Bit of a sidebar, but can you clarify what you mean about "Encounter at Farpoint" insisting the saucer has warp engines? I didn't recall it going to warp at all on its own. It catches up to the stardrive section at the planet, but I don't think it was made clear how far they were from the system when they had their encounter, so I wasn't left with any impression they had to have gone faster than light to get there in that time frame.

There is some stuff in the TNG TM about a controlled deceleration if separated at warp speed, though.

If it's functioning as a 'warp field symmetry' doohickey, I'd say it doesn't have to. If it's doubling as a power converter for the impulse engines, I'd say it has to at least have a line running to it. I again prefer Probert's connected configuration for the sake of 'respect of intent.'

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Well, if you're referring to the symmetrical warp governor from the NX-01, per the the Drex Files blog, the idea was that that had been obsoleted shortly before "The Cage" by improvements in the basic technology allowing them to natively generate symmetrical warp fields. Ergo, there's no way the E-refit or E-A should need one.

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The governor itself was rendered obsolete, yes, but there's been some speculation that the crystal on the SWG is not the generator itself, but a deflection crystal because Doug also states that the NX-01's impulse system uses warp plasma for power. Therefore, the crystal setup might convert warp plasma for impulse use similar to what the refit's deflection crystal was said to do. I asked Doug, so let's see what he thinks.

I still don't see how that means that the E-refit or E-A would have a SWG, though - even if the blue dome on the NX-E was an Impulse Deflection Crystal, it doesn't follow that the SWG assembly would be needed on the E-refit/E-A.

From the sounds of it, the doohickey was there on the NX-01 to cope with a new and exceptionally powerful warp field. One could speculate that the need for such a doohickey would re-emerge whenever an even newer and even more powerful warp field was introduced. That is, when the engines grew in power from TOS to TMP, the new field of the E-nil-refit (and E-B) once again required the doohickey - and when things plateaued again, the E-C was able to go the TOS route and abandon the doohickey.

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Not so sure - the SWG appeared to be there to cope with one very specific problem (the problem with generating a symmetrical warp bubble), which had been present on earlier ships too, and was one of the major reason why the "speed limit" on them was below Warp 5. Once they can generate a natively symmetric warp bubble, then something else becomes the speed limit, and it doesn't follow that they would lose the symmetric warp bubble.

Well, if you're referring to the symmetrical warp governor from the NX-01, per the the Drex Files blog, the idea was that that had been obsoleted shortly before "The Cage" by improvements in the basic technology allowing them to natively generate symmetrical warp fields. Ergo, there's no way the E-refit or E-A should need one.

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The governor itself was rendered obsolete, yes, but there's been some speculation that the crystal on the SWG is not the generator itself, but a deflection crystal because Doug also states that the NX-01's impulse system uses warp plasma for power. Therefore, the crystal setup might convert warp plasma for impulse use similar to what the refit's deflection crystal was said to do. I asked Doug, so let's see what he thinks.

I still don't see how that means that the E-refit or E-A would have a SWG, though - even if the blue dome on the NX-E was an Impulse Deflection Crystal, it doesn't follow that the SWG assembly would be needed on the E-refit/E-A.

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I agree. I just think they both happen to have the crystal that converts the warp plasma for the impulse engines, not the actual SWG itself. For TOS, I'd argue that they didn't see a need to have the warp and impulse system connected, but then for the refit they did. Then, with the modern driver coil, they didn't need it at all anymore.

Be it the "Refit" Enterprise, or -A, virtually all the plans I have seen indicate the Vertical Intermix Chamber (seen in the Main Engineering Scenes in TMP and TWOK, and a modified version seen in TUC) is shown to extend from the bottom of the secondary hull through the neck to the "Impulse Deflection Crystal."

Is there any real reason to assume it must actually travel that way? Is there any on-screen evidence to indicate that it indeed connects with the IDC, or is that simply an assumption that seems to have universally been agreed upon?

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Well, the reason that it's "assumed" that's the case is that Andrew Probert, who did the lion's share of the design on the TMP Enterprise, intended that to be the case with the TMP Enterprise. He even laid in "removable maintenance panels" along the side of the dorsal right over the path followed by the shaft.

Here's an interesting page from Andrew's own website... which you may find interesting.

But that doesn't mean too much, except insofar as the TMP Enterprise (1701(r) or 1701-A) are concerned. For any other ship... no, there's no real justification for it having to be "vertical"... except that they were reusing the same basic set over and over, throughout TMP, TWOK, TNG, and VOY, with significant redressing of course. They built them all with vertical engine "cores" because the set had a big hole for a vertical engine core.

There's no reason whatsoever that this type of "core" might not be entirely horizontal, or slanted, or go from side to side. It could be "V-shaped" without violating any of the "design rules" from the TNG Tech manual.

I am looking over any and all deck plans I can get my eyes upon, and every last one of them seems to show that, and while in theory it might make some sense, actually trying to fit it into the neck is problematic at best.

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True. Of course, the torpedo room from TWOK was not what Andrew Probert had in mind for the TMP ship... which was a pair of energy-based launchers (no physical "casings") on either side of the reactor core... with the proximity being an advantage because, remember, photorps are effectively matter/antimatter bombs tossed around as projectile weapons (in TOS, with no evidence of them being anything but "dumbfire weapons" but with TWOK and on, gaining some minimal maneuvering capabilities)

The "torpedo room" in TWOK is actually a redressing of the "Klingon Bridge" set from TMP. (Go back and watch both and you'll see the same structural "shock-absorbers" in the same positions... and the "torpedo loading circle" on the floor is where the Klingon 1st Officer stood in TMP, behind the Klingon helm console.)

It never worked particularly well. The best solution is that there are twin torpedo rooms (which is really REQUIRED when you consider that, shortly after the port torpedo room is destroyed, the Enterprise fires torpedos from the starboard tube, implying that there are separate port and starboard rooms, identical to what we see in the various sequences.

In fact, go back and note where Adm. Kirk boards the ship (port side)... and note which tube fires to launch spot's "casket casing" (starboard).

The main issue, there, is that I don't think that there's actually room in the neck for both rooms as built. But if you can "adjust the room" a little bit... make it, say, 30% narrower... then it works fairly well.

As for ergonomics... the main lift has to be at the front of the dorsal, forward of the reactor core (though not nearly far enough forward as far as I'm concerned!) and between the two launch tubes (and loading bays). That's not really a problem... if you can make it all fit in, that is.

The REAL problem is that "Main engineering" ought to have a lift tube at the front entrance, not a corridor. I suppose that the tube might separate into two, on the deck immediately over main engineering, and so there are two "stations" on either side of the entrance? Even so... the corridor we see out that door can't be more than 10-15 feet long, and it's supposed to look like something more like 40 feet, I think (though with some forced-perspective if memory serves).

Trying to fit the torpedo tubes around it is neigh-on impossible, not without making some very poor ergonomic choices (do you really want the crew manning the Torpedo bays to have to pass through the intermix chamber room at every shift change? Do you really want to have one of your handful of exernal docking ports (one third of the primary ingress/egress points in spacedock - assuming the saucer edge on p/s, the secondary hull port that was used in TMP and the Torpedo Bay port used in TWOK) lead to people and any stuff they are carrying pass through the intermix chamber room almost non-stop while in dock? (yes, I know the ports were never seen to have been used for such, but the point still stands, why have a port in a location that makes it difficult to get to the remainder of the ship from? [/quote]Well, the "TWOK" version of torpedos gives us a very good reason for having a docking port there (which wasn't there with the TMP-Probert version). This is supposed to be a dedicated docking port for torpedo casing reloading.

How many "docking ports" and other non-transporter access paths does the TMP Enteprise have?

The main landing bay (just listing it for completeness, not "really" a docking port.

The main saucer "gangway hatch" on the port side (which DOES make great sense, actually, but was never used again after the TMP SFX sequences were shot, but SHOULD have been used in the "spacedock" sequences in ST-III and ST-VI, as far as I'm concerned.)

The various "maintenance access hatches" on the top of the primary hull (waaay too many of those, but it did give them a cool sfx bit with Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and Ilia walking around on top of the hull, so....)

The "standard docking port" on the back of the bridge module... which is utter nonsense to have there unless the bridge module could potentially be ejected and require docking for crew recovery later... but made sense from a "series shooting" standpoint, I suppose, since it meant that you could have more stuff set on the Bridge set without having to have the crew go off to some other set. Production practicality trumping design logic, in other words...

The ports on the neck, which seem to be there for torpedo reloading, and COULD be there for "refueling" purposes (matter and antimatter) as well?

The ports on the side of the secondary hull, which seem to be there for cargo transfer.

The various underside-primary-hull hatches which seem to be there for loading of "consumables" items (I assume unprocessed food, water, atmosphere, replaceable filtering, whatever).

When docked... the most practical means of moving crew in and out really is the "main gangway hatch." The other hatches really are intended for specific purposes other than "crew transfer."

Why Kirk and Co boarded at the torpedo loading port is something of a mystery, except that the production had this new set and they wanted to use it... and didn't want to rebuild the cargo deck, or have to build the hangar deck or a "gangway" set...

Additionally, trying to fit both a turbo-shaft and the intermix chamber into the neck makes things very tight in the front (no good way to route the turboshaft around to aft of the intermix chamber, as in the saucer it would end up in the impulse engines before it could reach the neck).

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Oh, it works just fine, except for the issue with engineering mentioned above. The intent was for the lift tube to be right there in the leading edge.

The problem is that the set designers didn't really bother to build sets that would fit inside the ship as designed. The ship itself works just fine.

Overall, it would be a much more functional ship for personnel to use if the intermix chamber did NOT go through the neck.

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Except that part of the intention (as I recall, dictated by GR himself) was that the impulse and warp drive systems should be interconnected... and that there be a "vertical shaft" between the two.

I'm much more in favor of a sloped system, and of having the interconnection be a simple "power sharing" system rather than having portions of the generation be in both "halves" of the ship. But that's not now the TMP ship was designed.

If you're interested in how I, personally, do a starship design, well... I've done several, but at the moment I'm engaged in fleshing out the guts of the TOS Enterprise. You might find it interesting, since I'm addressing the very questions you're discussing, albeit for the earlier incarnation of the ship.

^ Bit of a sidebar, but can you clarify what you mean about "Encounter at Farpoint" insisting the saucer has warp engines? I didn't recall it going to warp at all on its own. It catches up to the stardrive section at the planet, but I don't think it was made clear how far they were from the system when they had their encounter, so I wasn't left with any impression they had to have gone faster than light to get there in that time frame.

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Sorry about the diversion. The thing is, the episode does show and tell us that our heroes in their combined starship fly 180 degrees away from their destination (and from Q who blocked the path) at maximum warp, faster than the ship has ever gone before, for several minutes. They then separate the saucer, spend some time playing with Q (time that Q could arguably negate, reverse, tie into a pretzel or whatever), and then finish the journey to their destination in the stardrive section.

The saucer completes the same journey - which thus necessarily spans at least several extreme-warp-minutes, and must contradict the TNG TM claim that the saucer can only sustain warp for a couple of minutes. Apparently, the truth is that the saucer can sustain useful warp for a couple of hours instead, at the very least.

It gets worse in "Arsenal of Freedom", where the saucer is sent on its merry way towards a distant starbase without giving it a warp boost at combined mode. If the saucer indeed is capable of sustaining warp for several hours and spanning interstellar distances that way, then it would be criminally negligient of LaForge not to give it this boost. If, however, the saucer can attain warp all on its own, without boosts, the episode makes sense and LaForge is off the hook.

Since we know that the Feds can make just about anything go to warp, including near-derelicts and mining rigs, it is only logical that the saucer could have warp, too. According to the combination of "EaF" and "AoF", it does.

(Ignore "EaF", though, and suddenly "AoF" no longer serves as proof. But ignoring "EaF" sounds a bit harsh, especially when the adventure was reaffirmed in the final episode of the show.)

The main issue, there, is that I don't think that there's actually room in the neck for both rooms as built. But if you can "adjust the room" a little bit... make it, say, 30% narrower... then it works fairly well.

As for ergonomics... the main lift has to be at the front of the dorsal, forward of the reactor core (though not nearly far enough forward as far as I'm concerned!) and between the two launch tubes (and loading bays). That's not really a problem... if you can make it all fit in, that is.

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Oh, I can make it fit, it is just a tight fit. Just the idea of the Torpedo Room Crews having to access their duty stations by passing though the room housing the VIC or the Jeffries Tube (in fact, the only way I can make this work is they actually pass through both) from a Turbolift stop that (while in use) blocks all traffic up/down the neck. Such single points of failure and bottlenecks are a poor design choice (speaking as an Engineer).

The REAL problem is that "Main engineering" ought to have a lift tube at the front entrance, not a corridor. I suppose that the tube might separate into two, on the deck immediately over main engineering, and so there are two "stations" on either side of the entrance? Even so... the corridor we see out that door can't be more than 10-15 feet long, and it's supposed to look like something more like 40 feet, I think (though with some forced-perspective if memory serves).

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I had actually forgotten about that corridor. I'll have to take a close look, but I don't see a way to route the turbolifts around such a corridor without protruding from the hull.

How many "docking ports" and other non-transporter access paths does the TMP Enteprise have?

The main landing bay (just listing it for completeness, not "really" a docking port.

The main saucer "gangway hatch" on the port side (which DOES make great sense, actually, but was never used again after the TMP SFX sequences were shot, but SHOULD have been used in the "spacedock" sequences in ST-III and ST-VI, as far as I'm concerned.)

The various "maintenance access hatches" on the top of the primary hull (waaay too many of those, but it did give them a cool sfx bit with Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and Ilia walking around on top of the hull, so....)

The "standard docking port" on the back of the bridge module... which is utter nonsense to have there unless the bridge module could potentially be ejected and require docking for crew recovery later... but made sense from a "series shooting" standpoint, I suppose, since it meant that you could have more stuff set on the Bridge set without having to have the crew go off to some other set. Production practicality trumping design logic, in other words...

The ports on the neck, which seem to be there for torpedo reloading, and COULD be there for "refueling" purposes (matter and antimatter) as well?

The ports on the side of the secondary hull, which seem to be there for cargo transfer.

The various underside-primary-hull hatches which seem to be there for loading of "consumables" items (I assume unprocessed food, water, atmosphere, replaceable filtering, whatever).

When docked... the most practical means of moving crew in and out really is the "main gangway hatch." The other hatches really are intended for specific purposes other than "crew transfer."

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That's a good iteration through the ports, and some very good points that I had not yet realized.

If you're interested in how I, personally, do a starship design, well... I've done several, but at the moment I'm engaged in fleshing out the guts of the TOS Enterprise. You might find it interesting, since I'm addressing the very questions you're discussing, albeit for the earlier incarnation of the ship.

Oh I have been following that thread with interest since before I joined the forums. I have taken a great deal of insight from your production and that discussion (and a few others on this site) and applying them to my own project. I'll probably be posting my WIP on the internals for the TMP Enterprise later this week (I finally have some renderable parts done). I am taking a different approach however, from the inside out. I am starting with the decks and equipment that are required, and building them first (from the bottom up), but I will go into the details of my thought processes and design decisions when I start that thread over in the Art Forum.

The main issue, there, is that I don't think that there's actually room in the neck for both rooms as built. But if you can "adjust the room" a little bit... make it, say, 30% narrower... then it works fairly well.

As for ergonomics... the main lift has to be at the front of the dorsal, forward of the reactor core (though not nearly far enough forward as far as I'm concerned!) and between the two launch tubes (and loading bays). That's not really a problem... if you can make it all fit in, that is.

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Oh, I can make it fit, it is just a tight fit. Just the idea of the Torpedo Room Crews having to access their duty stations by passing though the room housing the VIC or the Jeffries Tube (in fact, the only way I can make this work is they actually pass through both) from a Turbolift stop that (while in use) blocks all traffic up/down the neck. Such single points of failure and bottlenecks are a poor design choice (speaking as an Engineer).

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I'm not sure I'm following you re: having to go through the intermix chamber and jefferies tube. First off... I am not aware of any Jefferies tube in the TMP Enterprise at all, much less a specific one in a specific location in the dorsal. In my case, I tend to assume that there is some form of piping/wiring trunk running up the trailing edge of the dorsal, probably very much like a TOS Jefferies tube, but there's nothing on-screen to indicate as much, is there? So, what tube are you referring to?

Second... if you assume that every deck along the vertical shaft has the little "glass balcony" around it... but that in some cases (like the torpedo room) there's nothing there BUT the glass balcony... it's not really all that large, is it? As far as I'm concerned, I'd say that there is nothing but an octagonal roomlet in that location on the "torpedo deck."

So, for me... if I were doing this... I'd put the lift at the very leading edge of that deck, facing directly aft. I'd put a short lateral "lobby corridor" immediately aft of that, going port to starboard, but almost a square.. with a door to aft, opening onto the "glass balcony," another to the port torpedo room, and another to the starboard torpedo room, plus the door to the car itself. I would NOT have a "docking station" separate from the tube proper there, because... well... there's no room, that's very true.

Additionally, there would be the "one man lift car" from engineering which will go to the "glass balcony" on every deck, including this one... and probably several ladderways. I'd put ladders port and starboard at the front of this area (one per laucher bay, in other words) leading down, and probably one (just aft of the "glass balcony" room) leading upwards (to the "torpedo magazine room" on the deck above).

The main issue, there, is that I don't think that there's actually room in the neck for both rooms as built. But if you can "adjust the room" a little bit... make it, say, 30% narrower... then it works fairly well.

As for ergonomics... the main lift has to be at the front of the dorsal, forward of the reactor core (though not nearly far enough forward as far as I'm concerned!) and between the two launch tubes (and loading bays). That's not really a problem... if you can make it all fit in, that is.

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Oh, I can make it fit, it is just a tight fit. Just the idea of the Torpedo Room Crews having to access their duty stations by passing though the room housing the VIC or the Jeffries Tube (in fact, the only way I can make this work is they actually pass through both) from a Turbolift stop that (while in use) blocks all traffic up/down the neck. Such single points of failure and bottlenecks are a poor design choice (speaking as an Engineer).

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I'm not sure I'm following you re: having to go through the intermix chamber and jefferies tube. First off... I am not aware of any Jefferies tube in the TMP Enterprise at all, much less a specific one in a specific location in the dorsal. In my case, I tend to assume that there is some form of piping/wiring trunk running up the trailing edge of the dorsal, probably very much like a TOS Jefferies tube, but there's nothing on-screen to indicate as much, is there? So, what tube are you referring to?

Second... if you assume that every deck along the vertical shaft has the little "glass balcony" around it... but that in some cases (like the torpedo room) there's nothing there BUT the glass balcony... it's not really all that large, is it? As far as I'm concerned, I'd say that there is nothing but an octagonal roomlet in that location on the "torpedo deck."

So, for me... if I were doing this... I'd put the lift at the very leading edge of that deck, facing directly aft. I'd put a short lateral "lobby corridor" immediately aft of that, going port to starboard, but almost a square.. with a door to aft, opening onto the "glass balcony," another to the port torpedo room, and another to the starboard torpedo room, plus the door to the car itself. I would NOT have a "docking station" separate from the tube proper there, because... well... there's no room, that's very true.

Additionally, there would be the "one man lift car" from engineering which will go to the "glass balcony" on every deck, including this one... and probably several ladderways. I'd put ladders port and starboard at the front of this area (one per laucher bay, in other words) leading down, and probably one (just aft of the "glass balcony" room) leading upwards (to the "torpedo magazine room" on the deck above).

That's how I'd do it. Your mileage may vary.

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That is, essentially, how I am doing it. I'm basing my model off of the Strategic Designs deckplans, but making some of my own edits to make it work, and actually fit together. As always, what was seen on screen takes precedent over any other feature. WRT the neck, I have a ladder (seen in TWOK with Spock and then later Kirk climbing down and opening a hatch to continue farther down) running between the "Glass Balcony" and the main torpedo bays (it is a vertical shaft originating in the saucer in the Impulse Engineering spaces). One could call this a "Jeffries Tube" though on-screen there was no equipment or connections in there (and in my previous post, I was referring to this as a Jeffries Tube). There could easily be a Jeffries Tube running along the aft edge of the neck (in fact, the plans I am using call for one). There is not room for the Turbolift to actually move out of the shaft without running into the "Glass Balcony" and still have space to access it (i.e. not have the doors basically open into the void).

The location of the "one man lift car" seen in Main Engineering would place it outside the hull above the Torpedo Decks, and in the Starboard Tube on the Main Torpedo Deck (There are plural, as we see the torp's lowered from the deck above the main deck). This evening, I will post my WIP and notes in the Art forum for a more detailed description and analysis (I'm starting with U-deck and have gotten to T-deck in my modeling, but I have all the decks in 2D Cad already).

What are you intending your Intermix Chamber's function to be?
Is it, to you, an earlier version of the TNG 'Warp Core'?
Or is it a very long raw power conduit with the reactants at the base?
Or is it a very long reactor, with matter/anti-matter slowly being introduced together through the whole unit, perhaps with dilithium being used in every segment?

I just think how you think it works to be the main thing to wrestle with before you design it - and if you've worked it out or have an opinion, I'd love to hear it! =)

Something old I had (and I'm not claiming this works well):

-TOS had a pretty large reactor, used little Dilithium, but depleted it at very high rates when under high loads. Dilithium is used (1)to mediate the reaction and (2) convert the energy into usable radiation.

OR

-TOS had reactors in the nacelles which used dilithium as a mediator. Power was fed down and put into usable energy by other dilithium crystals.

-Intermix Shaft/Energizers - used LOTS of Dilithium but depleted it very slowly under all load levels. There's an initial reaction at the bottom of the shaft and more and more reactants are fed up, with dilithium in each transfer segment as well as being released as particles in the shaft to mediate and create the right kind of electrical charge. Some of the segments siphon off into power converting energizers. The whole thing was very complicated and very hard to manufacture - very costly in dilithium. The bigger/longer the Intermix shaft/Energizers, the more power the ship has.

--TNG (or...late movie) - reactor we're used to. Uses little crystal and it decays evenly, which is fine, because it can be recrystalized anyway (in TNG). Reaction is mediated by dilithium which causes plasma to energize. Step-down power is created somewhere other than main engineering.

What are you intending your Intermix Chamber's function to be?
Is it, to you, an earlier version of the TNG 'Warp Core'?
Or is it a very long raw power conduit with the reactants at the base?
Or is it a very long reactor, with matter/anti-matter slowly being introduced together through the whole unit, perhaps with dilithium being used in every segment?

I just think how you think it works to be the main thing to wrestle with before you design it - and if you've worked it out or have an opinion, I'd love to hear it! =)

Something old I had (and I'm not claiming this works well):

-TOS had a pretty large reactor, used little Dilithium, but depleted it at very high rates when under high loads. Dilithium is used (1)to mediate the reaction and (2) convert the energy into usable radiation.

OR

-TOS had reactors in the nacelles which used dilithium as a mediator. Power was fed down and put into usable energy by other dilithium crystals.

-Intermix Shaft/Energizers - used LOTS of Dilithium but depleted it very slowly under all load levels. There's an initial reaction at the bottom of the shaft and more and more reactants are fed up, with dilithium in each transfer segment as well as being released as particles in the shaft to mediate and create the right kind of electrical charge. Some of the segments siphon off into power converting energizers. The whole thing was very complicated and very hard to manufacture - very costly in dilithium. The bigger/longer the Intermix shaft/Energizers, the more power the ship has.

--TNG (or...late movie) - reactor we're used to. Uses little crystal and it decays evenly, which is fine, because it can be recrystalized anyway (in TNG). Reaction is mediated by dilithium which causes plasma to energize. Step-down power is created somewhere other than main engineering.

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My assumption is that while there may be some dramatic revolutions in Warp Drive Technology, the fundamental design concept doesn't change (Much like the Internal Combustion Engine may be dramatically more capable and efficient today vs 70 years ago, the fundamental design concept hasn't). In TOS they never made it absolutely clear how it worked. In TNG they made it explicitly clear. Additionally, while there may not be a requirement for a link between the Warp Core and the Impulse Drive, it was clearly designed so early on in the movies. Based upon what we've seen in more advanced Trek Tech, I am assuming a development between TOS and TMP that moves Engineering from the joint at the base of the pylons (See Cary L. Brown's thread in the Art Forum http://trekbbs.com/showthread.php?t=89810 ) forward to directly in line with the Impulse Drive in the saucer, and makes an explicit link to it. Antimatter is stored at the base of the secondary hull, where it can easily be ejected, and sourced from the bottom of the intermix chamber. Hydrogen is stored elsewhere, and sourced from the top of the intermix chamber. By TNG, Impulse Engines were powerful enough in their own right the challenge (and risk) of running a direct-connect between the intermix chamber and the Impulse Engines that it wasn't often done.

-TOS had reactors in the nacelles which used dilithium as a mediator. Power was fed down and put into usable energy by other dilithium crystals.

-Intermix Shaft/Energizers - used LOTS of Dilithium but depleted it very slowly under all load levels. There's an initial reaction at the bottom of the shaft and more and more reactants are fed up, with dilithium in each transfer segment as well as being released as particles in the shaft to mediate and create the right kind of electrical charge. Some of the segments siphon off into power converting energizers. The whole thing was very complicated and very hard to manufacture - very costly in dilithium. The bigger/longer the Intermix shaft/Energizers, the more power the ship has.

--TNG (or...late movie) - reactor we're used to. Uses little crystal and it decays evenly, which is fine, because it can be recrystalized anyway (in TNG). Reaction is mediated by dilithium which causes plasma to energize. Step-down power is created somewhere other than main engineering.

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I think this works pretty well.

Generally, I feel that the trend from ENT to TOS to movies to TNG works nicely if you assume that ENT an initially overly complex de-centralized multi-component setup, boiling down through TOS and TMP to be more interconnected, and finally arriving at a simplified, centralized 'constrictor core' TNG-type arrangement. Indeed, it would seem that those constrictor segments would serve to eliminate the need for multiple dilithium emplacements - focusing the matter and antimatter streams for a more powerful single reaction.

I believe Rick Sternbach once suggested that VGR's 'swirl core' had dilithium lining it and that it was supposed to be analagous to the TMP core design - so in that regard the VGR core might be a 'throwback' design intended for higher output for the small ship. If one takes lighting effects into account, the Defiant might have an experimental hybrid swirl/TNG core - with the constriction segments of TNG and the 'swirl core' effect in the M/ARC.

(Of course, for all we know other ships retained the 'swirl' type core as seen on VGR, too. Heck, the Enterprise-D might have been an exception rather than a rule. Alternately, the)

By TNG, Impulse Engines were powerful enough in their own right the challenge (and risk) of running a direct-connect between the intermix chamber and the Impulse Engines that it wasn't often done.

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I agree, and I think the supposed introduction of the modern impulse driver coil (which allows low-level warp-type spatial distortion that makes the ship easier to move at impulse) on the Ambassador class, which also happens to not have a deflection crystal at the back of its saucer, nicely fits this scenario.

Question - I've never really understood how the saucer can be able to travel at warp without the nacelles, as surely the nacelles generate the subspace/warp field necessary? I have always understood warp drive to function on the principle that the nacelles warp space with a high-energy subspace field, allowing the ship to travel at FTL speeds.

Saquist - you there? Following on from our discussion over on the other thread:

"The intermix chamber is where the crystals are".

Not necessarily. There is no clear indication on the TMP engine core that crystals are contained within, unlike the TNG Enterprise where there is a central crystal housing. It is entirely possible that the crystals are housed in a seperate structure, ie the reactor room where Spock dies, or that the engine core itself utilises a different method of dilithium regulation, eg dilithium is uniformly embedded in the entire engine core (as discussed by Praetor in the post above). As I have stated, the identical reactor chamber seen in Voyage Home containing crystals would seem to confirm the first hypothesis.

"You're saying it's logical to compare Klingon technology and design and Star Fleet technology and design as being synonomous?"

It is a reasonable assumption, given the evidence, that both Klingon and Starfleet warp technology functions using similar principles. Why? Because we know from Voyage Home that Klingon birds of prey use dilithium crystals, which is a matter/antimatter regulator - hence, a M/ARA system. We hear Scotty in Search for Spock asking "where's the damn anti-matter inducer?" Clearly, a function he expects to find and knows how to use, because their warp drive must operate using the same principles. Unlike, for example, Romulan warp drive, which we know uses an artificial singularity as its power source (although exactly how that works has never been explained).

"Looks like a plasma valve to me".

Does it? What does your average "plasma valve" look like, then? Can't say I've seen many of them. What evidence are you basing that on?

Your description of impulse drive operation - I'm not disagreeing, but where did you get that detailed run-down from? The only description I've ever seen is in the TNG technical manual and I don't recall anything about distortion waves, to say nothing of deflection crystals.

I've never really understood how the saucer can be able to travel at warp without the nacelles, as surely the nacelles generate the subspace/warp field necessary?

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Most Trek starships don't have "nacelles" - only Starfleet vessels tend to have those. Yet most if not all Trek starships appear to have "warp coils", the things that sometimes are positioned inside nacelles, sometimes inside casings, sometimes inside side or top bulges, sometimes at the very heart of the ship...

The usual hint of the presence of a set of warp coils is a visual glow through some sort of a "field window". Many Starfleet ships have blue glow at the nacelles or cowlings. And remarkably, the saucer of the E-D has intense blue glow on two sets of squarish windows at the aft topside. This would be an excellent place for the saucer's warp engines, close to the impulse engines and their reactors, and close to the reputed saucer aft photon torpedo launcher which would have to have an antimatter source.

There is no clear indication on the TMP engine core that crystals are contained within, unlike the TNG Enterprise where there is a central crystal housing.

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Yet there isn't really any evidence of active crystals being located anywhere else, either. If they are in the very heart of the reactor in TNG and ENT, and in TOS "Elaan of Troyius" and the like this seems to be true as well, why assume they would occupy a radically different location in the machinery of other eras?

OTOH, on today's ships one may confuse a reciprocating steam engine (an external combustion engine) and a diesel engine (an internal combustion engine) because both have cylinders and pistons, even though the fuel is in a completely and fundamentally different location in the two. Perhaps the TMP ship was based on a completely different powerplant than the TOS and TNG ones, not just in configuration, but in operating principle as well?

..the identical reactor chamber seen in Voyage Home containing crystals..

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Or the identical access point to the conveyor/tubemail/waldo that takes the crystals from the shirtsleeves environment to the hellfires of the intermix chamber?

That'd be a somewhat logical path of development: in ENT, one couldn't manipulate the dilithium at all, in TOS and TMP one could manipulate it by feeding it into a robotic system, and in TNG one could directly access it at the very reaction site.

It is a reasonable assumption, given the evidence, that both Klingon and Starfleet warp technology functions using similar principles.

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Indeed, many a TOS episode was based on the premise that Klingons covet the exact same resources as the UFP. So their technologies in general might be very similar, perhaps due to industrial espionage.

The Impulse Deflection Crystal:
Like Warp Drive the Impulse Engines are a type of field propulsion system. The Fusion reactor ignites the matter and the energy from that reaction is then colaspsed into spatial disturbance that radiates out from the reactor. Only certain materials react with the impulse wave. Impulse Drive coils can be used to repel or to be attracted to the distortion wave

Residual plasma is flushed to the rear in the Impulse manifold on the exterior of the ship.

The Deflection Crystal cancels out residual wave activity on the opposite side of the drive coils.

The Additional Conduit routed to the impulse drive coils and manifold as seen in the illistration allows the coils to be powered by warp plasma or for the core to flushed incase the core is scrammed mid-reaction

Memory Alpha insist that the Impulse Engine is an ION Chemical Propulsion Thrusted Exhaust system. We've never seen any sort of thrustered exhaust at all or even the need to follow physics and pivot to move in any particular direction. The Enterprise A, Voyager and the Enterprise D were more than capable of reversing engines and direction of travel without reversing the ships orientation on many occasions.

Its my theory that the Impulse wave created by the reactor has to be countered as the ship travels through the disturbance. The deflection Crystal produces and interference pattern on one side of the reactor while the driver coils are on the other side being pushed by the leading edge of the shock wave. As the ship travels through the center of the distortion field to the other side of the shock wave the deflection crystal's interference pattern prevents the wave traveling in the opposite direction from pushing against the driver coils and subsequently allowing for a smooth ride.

I agree! I mean JJ's Enterprise has a round exterior bridge but the set looks very oval to me. So does the toy of it by Playmates as well!

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Where do you get the idea that the bridge is supposed to be round in the abrams movie? The production designer has stated at least a couple times he made the bridge oval to take advantage of the 2.35 widescreen format, that a round bridge would have looked flat in that format (you can evaluate the accuracy of that comment by viewing past TREK movies, which were all 2.35, though TUC was shot super35 not anamorphic.)

You can presumably reconcile the interior and exterior appearance/shape of bridge by figuring there is some depth or shell around the non-window part, right? Or does it have visible turbo-lifts and such on the outside?

Since we know that the Feds can make just about anything go to warp, including near-derelicts and mining rigs, it is only logical that the saucer could have warp, too.

Timo Saloniemi

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That ignores what the production was actually allowing most of the time.

One of my pitches in '90 involved installing deployable warp nacelles in an intentionally separated saucer, or installing unseen means of getting the saucer to warp independently, in order to draw in a group that had been preying on other separated starships.

I was told very explicitly that it doesn't work that way, that the saucers can't ever go to warp, that there is no way to do this (not as a production-wise issue of expense or effort, as an in-universe story call), on to the next.

Of course I guess if Rick Berman pitched the idea it might have gone down differently ...

"Yet there isn't really any evidence of active crystals being located anywhere else, either. If they are in the very heart of the reactor in TNG and ENT, and in TOS "Elaan of Troyius" and the like this seems to be true as well, why assume they would occupy a radically different location in the machinery of other eras?"

I'm not saying they're not. I'm saying they could be, given the evidence I've already cited (eg the reactor rooms in Treks II & IV). As you've correctly noted, the TMP refit Enterprise was a radically new design using the latest advances. It is therefore entirely possible that the warp system may have deviated significantly from existing designs.

I must admit - I haven't seen any of Enterprise at all, so can't comment on what was seen on that show or how it relates to subsequent designs

Re the saucer warp engines - I thought the whole point of warp nacelles being located away from the hull of the ship was so that there was a reasonable distance between the crew and the warp field? If there are warp engines located within the body of the saucer itself then that would invalidate that design element. And it also must be noted that (as far as I know) there has never been, in any Trek iteration, any mention of saucer warp engines. Trevanian's notion of introducing deployable nacelles is an extremely neat one and would have solved this conundrum at a stroke. Shame they didn't go with it - and if they told him the saucer couldn't go to warp, then they hadn't been paying enough attention to their own show.

Saquist - that's a fair theory (and an appealing one actually - I've often wondered how 'reverse impulse' works when there are no impulse engines on the bow of the saucer), but it must be noted that whatever Memory Alpha insists, it's the creation of fans, and not canon. The purpose of the crystal (if it is one) remains hazy.

The Deflection Crystal cancels out residual wave activity on the opposite side of the drive coils.

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As I pointed out in the other thread, PROBERT stated that the deflection crystal is a kind of power linkage between the intermix and the impulse engines. The intermix on the TMP Enterprise is NOT a warp core, it is a large power transfer conduit leading from the main reactor at the very bottom of the engineering module. In this sense it could work just as well as a field drive and as a plasma-type thruster, since in the latter case it would simply fire the product of a matter/antimatter reaction out into space.